BOSSES of a theme park where an East Lancashire teenager fell to her death from a ferris wheel today admitted breaching health and safety laws.
Salma Saleem, from Nelson plunged 30ft from the ride at Gulliver's World in July 2002 and bosses of the park were yesterday fined £80,000 for safety failures.
Mark Harris, prosecuting on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive, said there was no evidence that Salma's death was caused directly by health and safety breaches - particularly as the lap bar was found to be securely locked after the accident.
However, he revealed a catalogue of safety failures which could have caused a similar accident.
Dominic Nolan QC, defending, accepted there were some flaws in safety procedures and said the firm had invested about £400,000 into overhauling its health and safety culture since the tragedy.
Judge Roger Dutton fined the company £70,000 for failing to ensure a person's safety and £10,000 for failure to carry out proper risk assessments.
He said: "There were serious failures."
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